Bagism on Bold Street

Bold Street and Bagism.
Written by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney.
Photographs by Tony Knox.
18 August 2007.

On the close of the unveiling of the Transvoyeur Legacy 2007 art collection in the Emergency Department of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Tony Knox and I went up towards Bold Street to make our way home.

Outside the Oxfam Charity Shop were two bags on the floor with a guitar case next to it with a pile of papers and loose coins in the bottom. Families walked by nearly stepping on the bags. The bags then moved and guitar music sounded from one bag and followed by citations of poetry form another. Then it was realised these were artists in the bags and doing a live art intervention on ‘Bagism’. Whether the artists were aware they had drawn a crowd, they had an audience confounded and curious to this strange manifestation of incongruous bags resounding prose and music.

A man, somewhat worse for wear, stopped and moved around the bags like an inquisitive cat ready to pounce. He moved further in, stumbling, and tried to lift the bag from one reading poetry and asked “I want to get in with you!